


may keep a secret

by TheTartWitch



Series: Harry Potter Canon Divergence [10]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Grey!Hermione, Hermione is too smart for her own good, Lucius Malfoy is secretly in charge, Lucius Malfoy loves his son, Neville has a magic book and a magic cat and a magic bird and magic friends, Neville is a sneaky slimy Slytherin, Neville loves his parents, Neville's upbringing was kind of bad, Second Year has begun, Slytherin Hermione, Suggestions are always welcome and can possibly make Neville's life better, donate ideas to the Neville's-a-badass Fic Fund, grey!Neville, no end-of-first-year drama, short vignette chapters, slytherin neville, that sounds like the back flap of a children's fantasy story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-10-22 10:04:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10694757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTartWitch/pseuds/TheTartWitch
Summary: Neville isn’t Sorted Hufflepuff, or Gryffindor. Ravenclaw was never really an option, either.





	1. Pre-Hogwarts

Living with his grandmother is a near-constant domination of himself. Frank was never overly interested in plants; when Neville first shows his curiosity, Augusta eyes him with something bordering distrust before she locks all the greenhouse doors and hides the key. When Neville’s Great Uncle Algie accidentally drops him out a window, he bounces.

 _Frank would have flown_ , Augusta says, and hands him his father’s wand. He wonders what he’s supposed to do with it… every book on magic he’s ever read said that you don’t _need_ a wand, really, but it’s a focussing channel. Using another witch or wizard’s wand would do you no good, because each wand is near-uniquely suited to only a few people to ever live.

He takes it to the hospital and puts it in his father’s hands. They stare down at it together, and Frank says something garbled but deep, gaze flicking off to follow a squirrel that’s climbing a tree outside their window, and Alice laughs a little before stopping quickly, as though she’s frightened of being caught. Neville takes the wand with him when he leaves.

(He doesn’t tell Augusta he took it. He doesn’t tell the nurses about the sparks that flew from his father’s wand when the man held it, or the near-frustrated look that appeared on the man’s face afterwards.)

He goes to Ollivander’s secretly, gets his own wand and a wand holster with a holding pouch to place a second wand inside, special-made. His father’s wand, a piece of the man himself, will walk beside Neville every day of his schooling.

His grandmother buys him a toad, affecting a slightly-less-grumpy facade outside their home, but he can tell she’s disappointed in the way the cats weave away from his feet, how the owls coo and fly his letters willingly but don’t approach. She leaves too fast to hear the shopkeep’s confused explanations of how _they’re usually so well-behaved, I wonder what’s gotten into them?_ And he sits still and quiet until she finishes packaging everything he’ll need for his new toad and then smiles and says, _don’t worry about it. The vulture on her hat scares everyone away_ , and it startles a laugh out of her.


	2. First Year, Part One: Slytherins, Potters, and Ending Up Where You Belong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The number of potential chapters is a very rough estimate, just so you're all aware. And the recommendations for first year are still open, but it'll have to be for scenes after these, of course.

At the station, Augusta does not wish her grandson well the way she did for her son nearly twenty years ago. She does not pat his back or hug him, or offer to charm his bags to board the train themselves so they’ll have more time for goodbyes. Neville doesn’t expect her to. She isn’t exactly a huge believer in sentiment if you aren’t her son, and she doesn’t even visit him in hospice. 

They stand on the platform and stare solemnly at each other. He sizes her up: he’s not strong now, not tall or charming or particularly brave, and he doesn’t care for her much. She’s henpecking his weaknesses even now, in the last moment he’ll see her for about a year, and as she opens her mouth to say something rude -he can tell by the set of her mouth- he turns to board the train. 

He doesn’t look back once.

Harry Potter is on this train, is going to Hogwarts in his year, and he pulls out his father’s wand on the train to hold it to his forehead and think of his mother, afraid to laugh where she should be safest of all, and his father, so very close but still so very far away, and he breathes deeply. It’s been too long: the grip of his father’s wand has lost the man’s scent, and for that he’s sad. But he forces himself to smile and think about the coming days free of Augusta’s crushing grip and the memories of the only time he’d ever seen her greenhouse, so big and beautiful and full of life the way he couldn’t be.

He’s smiling to himself as he manually unlatches Trevor’s cage door and lets the little toad hop its way to freedom too. There’s a shriek from the hall, then a bushy-haired girl pops her head in. 

_ Is that your toad?  _ She asks, and he can see the moment her eyes catch on the cage’s door, unlocked and gaping. She squints at him, and he smiles. 

_ I guess so _ , he says, and she watches him for a moment, utterly still, before stepping into the compartment and casually sliding the door shut behind her. 

_ Well _ , she muses to herself,  _ it should at least get a few minutes’ head start. _ He grins and passes her one of his hidden Herbology books. They don’t speak much over the train ride, only a short conversation where she wonders aloud where she might go, what House, and he assures her that he plans on the best House for him and that she should consider observing members of each House to find out which might suit her later on. 

That’s how he meets Hermione Jane Granger, his best friend.

(Trevor is returned to him at the school’s looming front gate, where Hagrid thinks he’s being kindly and Neville gamely hides his grimace.)

Neville isn’t Sorted Hufflepuff, or Gryffindor. Ravenclaw was never really an option, either.

He’s Sorted Slytherin, and right in front of him, Hermione catches his eye and he nods his head towards the greener upperclassmen. She rolls her eyes, nods, and spends all of three minutes with the Hat on her head, presumably arguing.

_ Longbottom heir _ , someone whispers, and Neville smiles in a cheerful, dumpy sort of way, letting them all get an eyeful. He sits with his back to the other tables, surreptitiously casting the protection spells he’d taught himself after being dangled out a window three stories off the ground. Hermione raises an eyebrow, he raises one back, and when she digs her wand out of her pocket and he from his holster, he demonstrates the precise flick-jab-tug for the best shielding charm he’s ever heard of. She gets it the third try, and their fellow green first-years watch with eyes carefully disinterested. He doesn’t make the technique a secret, leaning into the table to better demonstrate, but.

He doesn’t teach them the counterspell. It costs him nothing to keep potential enemies or allies at arm’s length until he’s sure of them. 

Malfoy, apparently, hasn’t learned that lesson.

_ A Slytherin _ , he sneers from across the table,  _ don’t you remember where you come from?  _ His bookends try to look sufficiently intimidating, but one of them’s just shoved some sort of pie in his mouth whole and the other is staring at a bit of stone on the ceiling, thinking something through with what appears to be great difficulty.

_ Every day _ , Neville doesn’t say, gazing across at him mournfully and trying to scoop some potatoes onto his fork, and Hermione sniffs a little beside him, irritated. 

_ Such cheek _ , she hisses, and helps herself to some jam as Neville laughs to himself. Malfoy’s face colors, but he switches his attention to Potter, sitting dutifully at the Gryffindor table and listening to the Headmaster’s speech with a rapt expression. 

_ Disgraceful _ , he mutters, but Neville can’t imagine what he means. 

The dungeons aren’t as awful as the other Houses are led to believe. The rooms are spacious and split amongst all the individuals from the first year, females in one and males in the other. There’s a third passageway, but it leads to their Head of House, Professor Severus Snape’s, office and rooms. In the common room the windows look out into the lake, and the chairs are wingbacked and stiff, but there are some softer ones piled in the corners. Hermione leads him to a pair near a window and they pull out their books, ignoring Malfoy’s irritated stink-eye.

In the morning the post comes, and Augusta’s sent a Howler. Neville smiles grimly down at it but isn’t overly surprised. He allows it to unfurl at the table as he gathers his breakfast, determined to ignore whatever it is she must have said in front of hundreds of people.

It’s short. 

_ Your father would never have disappointed me this way _ .  Hermione snarls and shoves a hot chocolate in his direction, and then a water, because sugar, and Neville just. 

He just thinks it’s funny how Augusta speaks of his father as though he died in the war, and says nothing at all of his mother, who was just as brave as her husband.

A few days go by. Flying classes come up; Hermione grimaces at the notice when it appears on the common room’s bulletin board.  _ Flight _ , she groans, and Malfoy attempts to make some scathing remark at the back of her head but she’s too busy walking away already to notice. Neville contents himself with twisting his lips into a convincing nervous frown. 

He falls off his broom, but ends up with a nasty bruise and nothing else. Hermione wobbles but doesn’t flip over, and Malfoy and Potter zip about as though they’ve grown wings and the knowledge to use them. 

_ You’re not really bad at flying, are you?  _ Hermione asks, her eyes searching his, and he huffs. 

_ It costs me nothing to have a hidden advantage lying in my arsenal, ‘Mione, _ he says sagely, and cradles his browning shoulder in an exaggerated fashion. She snorts and shakes her head, but she sees the sense in his logic, he knows. 

_ Where do you think you’re going so late?  _ He murmurs, flicking on the chair’s table-side lamp just to see Malfoy’s back twitch and freeze.  _ Your duel with Potter?  _

Malfoy sneers, but it’s weaker at midnight somehow. The filtered light coming through the windows lands nearly full-on his face; Neville crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow expectantly.  _ How would you know anything about that?  _ The boy snaps. Crabbe hums behind him, nonplussed and missing his bed, most likely.

Hermione’s lamp flicks on.  _ You’re not exactly subtle, Malfoy. Next time, don’t announce it in the entrance to the Great Hall. You practically invited people to tell Filch or the professors.  _ Neville nods. 

_ I wouldn’t go. You’re flirting with detention, doing something so foolish and Gryffindor _ , he says, and Malfoy’s eyes widen. 

_ Fine, then. I won’t go _ , he scoffs. The tail of his robe whirls as he storms back to bed, Crabbe following as he rubs his eyelids and yawns. 

Neville and Hermione’s eyes meet. They grin with shark’s teeth, and then the lamps flick off together.

The next morning, Potter and Weasley glare across the tables at Malfoy but the Slytherin refuses to retaliate so easily. Hermione complements his styled hair and they’re off in a stilted, uncomfortable conversation. Neville eats his toast, turns to stare directly at Potter, and winks. The anger melts into confusion on Potter’s very emotive face, and Neville swivels back to face Malfoy’s bookends again, satisfied. 

He’s sitting quietly in the library, finishing an essay and listening in on other students’ conversations, when Potter and Weasley sit down not too far away. Malfoy saunters in not far behind them, his bookends noticeably absent, and sits at Neville’s table. 

Neville doesn’t look at him; he’s waving a hand in a dismissive gesture, opening the channel for a one-way eavesdropping spell to Potter’s table, and the sound of the other boy’s voice shuts Malfoy up quickly. However, all too soon Potter’s eyes catch on them and narrow suspiciously, and soon after that the two are leaving. Malfoy has a thoughtful, nearly-excited look on his face.

_ A three-headed dog and a trapdoor _ , he says. His quill flutters against his lips a few times in thought. Neville sighs. 

_ Just don’t be obvious, alright? They’re already suspicious enough. Give them a few days to forget us and then tell whomever you want to tell _ , he says, adding the period to his essay’s final sentence and beginning to pack his things.  _ I’ll deal with Hagrid’s dragon _ .

_ Dragon?  _ Malfoy says, blindsided, but Neville’s too busy to stop and explain.


	3. Year One, Part Two: Dragons, Fathers, and Confused Gryffindors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Potter, he says quietly. The boy’s head whips around.

_Potter_ , he says quietly. The boy’s head whips around.

 _What, Longbottom?_ He growls. Weasley puffs up next to him. Neville shakes his head exasperatedly, and beside him, Hermione raises an eyebrow.

 _I don’t even know why you’d go out of your way for this_ , she murmurs, eyes flashing up to examine Potter’s robe. At least it isn’t wrinkled. _Does this support your uninvolvement policy?_

 _The dragon_ , he tells Potter, ignoring Hermione’s griping for the moment. _Hagrid’s. You have to tell him to send it somewhere else, I don’t care where._

 _How do you know about that._ Potter blurts. Weasley’s face is an interesting pale violet. Goyle  sneezes to hide a snicker: he’s watching them for Malfoy, no doubt to report everything back to the boy later. Whatever. It won’t hurt Neville to disgust Augusta even more than he already has by associating with the boy.

He stands. _Deal with it, Potter. There’s no reason anyone needs to know about this if you can take responsibility._ Hermione walks right behind him out of the library, her nose still buried in a book. He doesn’t bother trying to stop her; the spells she’s already taught him on defense and offense have proved that it’s worth steering her away from poles and walls while they walk.

A week later, Potter and Weasley get detention for being caught out after curfew. There’s fright about someone killing a unicorn for its blood for a while after that, until Malfoy writes his father about the cerberus over the trapdoor and there’s an immediate influx of Aurors and school officials to remedy this dangerous problem. Malfoy sits around being smug for a while before becoming distracted by lording his involvement over the whole situation over Potter’s head in the halls. Hermione doesn’t look up from her Divination textbook; she’d heard Neville predict this outcome days ago, but she wisely hadn’t bet on it like Goyle did. Crabbe was too dazed to bet on it. Neville won twenty galleons.

And that’s how their first year ends.

Professor Quirrell disappears into the Forest the last day of term. Hermione, Malfoy, and Goyle promise to write. Potter and Weasley glare confusedly all the way to the train. Everyone gets at least passing grades on their exams.

Neville goes back to Augusta for another three months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggestions for Year Two: Chambers of Secrets are now open. Please let me know your opinion on the following plot points:  
> -Quirrell's return: is he dead or biding his time in the Forest?  
> -Potter's rescue from the Dursleys  
> -Neville's quiet fight with Augusta: maintained silent antagonism, or perhaps a few curses (verbal or magical)?  
> -The Heir of Slytherin??? Still Potter???  
> -Hermione visiting Neville over the summer??  
> -Goyle becoming a character with more influence??  
> -Ginny and Luna's arrivals at Hogwarts: Ginny still getting diary? Luna being a major character?  
> (Not gonna lie, I ship Luna/Greg hardcore...)
> 
> I honestly want to know, guys. I'm mainly writing this for fun, and for me nothing is more fun than seeing the reactions and thoughts of others. Even if you just liked the story so far or noticed a mistake, I would love to hear from you. :)


	4. Second Year, Part One: Welcome Back to Hogwarts, Neville

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! And so is Neville! :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's May 25th, so as promised, here's the short chapter getting us back into the swing of things and introducing Neville's second year. ;)

They don’t speak. Neville smiles politely at his uncles and allows his lone aunt to pinch his cheek, though he pretends not to notice when she tugs her hand away from a lingering zap on his skin.

Augusta does not unlock the greenhouses. He doesn’t need her to. A simple  _ alohomora  _ is all that is necessary to undo the work of a single key.

Hermione and Malfoy send gifts for his birthday. Hermione sends a book that can become any book he has knowledge of, something extremely useful. He doesn’t ask how she got it, or where she gained the knowledge necessary to do something so illegal. 

Malfoy sends a black cat (that the boy has already jokingly named Toad) and an invitation to his home, along with Hermione, for the rest of the summer. Neville politely declines but insists that he would be more than open in later years.

Augusta accompanies him to Diagon Alley when he goes for supplies; not out of any concern for him, he doesn’t think, but more to keep an eye on the boy she’s learned not to trust. He is an angel, apart from the time when he magicks a worm into her vulture’s mouth without her knowledge and relishes in the giggles from passerby. He completes his animal collection with a small, harmless grass snake and a large Eurasian eagle owl which makes Augusta purse her lips. She doesn’t stop him, however, which means that she’s divorcing herself from his behavior. 

He also browses a bookstore, determined to expand his knowledge of books soas to more effectively use Hermione’s gift.

Toad has been taught to defend his things from anyone who is not him, and his eagle owl, Medusa, can recognize him even under potions and disguising spells. His snake, he leaves among his potions ingredients in his trunk. He’s not bothered to be inventive with her name, so she’ll go by ‘Snake’.

On September 3rd, Augusta stiffly walks him to Platform 9 ¾ with an air of determined indifference, wherein he greets Hermione and Malfoy, spies Potter hanging about with the Weasleys but can’t be arsed to greet them, and boards the Express. At his compartment’s window, Toad spots Augusta watching the train and her mouth opens in a silent hiss.

Second year has begun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please suggest stuff you'd like to see for Neville's second year! :) and feel free to let me know how you feel about this (admittedly short) "returning" chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> please feel free to suggest scenes you'd like to see written for the next year/chapter, and after I post a chapter we'll switch to scenes from the next chapter/year! It would be cool to see which scenes people want to see!


End file.
